A blog by Isagani R. Cruz. Dedicated to Old King Cole, who first suggested a blog devoted to literary works written or read in languages other than the mother tongue/s of the author/s. For info about blogger, go to http://www.isaganicruz.net.

20 February 2009

Abdon M. Balde Jr.

Yesterday (19 February) in Legazpi City, I was with Philippine prizewinning novelist Abdon M. Balde Jr., who writes in Bicolano, as well as in Filipino and English. What is particularly interesting about him is that has written pieces that are in two different dialects of Bicolano (Bicolano, a language spoken in the Western part of the main island of Luzon of the Philippines, has about eight dialects). What he does is similar to what some non-Filipino writers do, which is to play around with dialects, not only with languages. We can't really call this kind of language shifting as second-language writing, because it is still the same language, but it calls for critics that know the dialects and not just the languages involved in the text. Where are these critics? As usually happens in literary history, writers are several steps ahead of critics.

About Me

Former Philippine Undersecretary of
Education ISAGANI R. CRUZ (Ph.D., University of Maryland) is the president of The Manila Times College
and a Governor of the National Book Development Board. He belongs to the Hall of Fame of the
Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature and is one of the 2010
Outstanding Filipinos (TOFIL). He writes
for Philippine Star, Pilipino
Mirror, and China Daily.